During Wednesday's debate, Steadman,
who is openly gay, told colleagues that the bill was essential for
ensuring “very basic, but very important legal protections … that
no family should be without.”

The measure now moves to the House,
where Democratic Representative Mark Ferrandino will carry the bill.

Ferrandino has claimed there is
Republican support for the measure in the GOP-controlled House. But
whether the measure reaches the House floor remains to be seen.
Supporters worry that House Speaker Frank McNulty, a Highlands Ranch
Republican, will assign the bill to a hostile committee, thereby
killing it.

Opponents of the measure have attempted
to paint civil unions as analogous to marriage, most likely in an
attempt to lay the groundwork for a legal challenge to the measure if
approved by lawmakers. In 2006, voters adopted a constitutional
amendment that defines marriage as a heterosexual union.